


Chasing the Dragon

by Camelittle



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arthurian references, Artist Merlin, Cornwall, Dragons, Implied Violence, Kidnapping, M/M, Rock Star Arthur, Scones, Stalker Mordred, Synesthesia, Tintagel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-15 11:48:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1303798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camelittle/pseuds/Camelittle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The quiet life in rural Cornwall suits Merlin. As a portrait artist with synesthesia, he makes a living out of his unusual ability to see sounds. But he finds his tranquil world thown into turmoil when he takes on a commission to paint rock 'n' roll demi-god Arthur Pendragon. And despite finding himself thrust into an uncertain world of deranged celebrity stalkers, golden dragons and kidnappings, Merlin can't bring himself to regret a thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chasing the Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this amazing [art](http://i.imgur.com/snBCBqG.jpg) by [](http://birdsmustland.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://birdsmustland.livejournal.com/)**birdsmustland** , which also included this brilliant prompt: 
> 
> For as long as he can remember, Merlin has seen sounds. The world has been filled with varying colours and hues as words are painted across the sky. To the doctors, it's synesthesia, to Merlin as he was growing up, he called it magic. Now, he calls it inspiration and his unique world view helps him make a living, painting people as he sees them. Sometimes, he sees more than colour, sometimes there are shapes there too. It's fascinating and can be rather distracting sometimes...
> 
> Enormous thanks to the wonderful mods at the [](http://merlinreversebb.livejournal.com/profile)[**merlinreversebb** ](http://merlinreversebb.livejournal.com/%22) community, particularly [](http://chosenfire28.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://chosenfire28.livejournal.com/)**chosenfire28** , for hosting this fantastic fest. THANK YOU. Last, but not least, all the tremendous thanks go to my patient, insightful and all-round brilliant beta, [](http://archaeologist_d.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://archaeologist_d.livejournal.com/)**archaeologist_d**.

**Chasing the Dragon**

By Camelittle

 

oo80808oo

He really wishes he hadn’t taken this commission.

The subject is a colossal prat. Admittedly he has the face, body and voice of a sun god. But they're coupled with all the mood-swings and arrogance of a toddler. It is a combination that wreaks havoc with Merlin’s temper, his equilibrium, and—if he’s going to be honest—his libido.

Although this discomposure is probably brilliant for his art, it is very wearing.

He normally limits himself to three major commissions per year, and only paints subjects that he’s interviewed first, in person—here in Cornwall, because he can’t bear London’s hub-bub and screaming intensity. Thanks to his sponsor, Gaius Sanat, he now has an extensive portfolio, plenty of cash for paints, his own studio, and a lengthy waiting list of eager and intriguing sitters.

So why on earth did he say he’d paint this wealthy, irritating knob, who can’t seem to sit still, and who complains so much that Merlin thinks his ears are going to start bleeding?

It was a single phone call from the subject’s father, Uther Pendragon, that sucked him in.

Uther has a seductive voice, all honey-gold, warm ochre and pumpkin, but with layers of vivid purple that hint at a consuming, threatening darkness. Finding himself instantly enchanted by melodic undertones of grief, in deep mahogany, and chocolate-coloured flashes of bittersweet obsession, Merlin never really zoned in on the details of the commission Uther offered him, months ago; he was too busy visualising colours. As soon as he put the phone down he started painting, working long into the night. It was as if time lost all meaning while he worked, losing track of days and weeks, before finally producing an abstract, autumnal design of swirling, shimmering mists and lost loves that he called _Grief and Power_. One of his most ardent collectors snapped it up, for a princely fee that would keep him in canvas and curry take-away for many months.

All in all, he has a lingering sense of gratitude to Uther.

And that’s how he’s ended up with Uther’s egotistical, narcissistic rock ‘n’ roll demigod of a son, fresh from recording his latest album, perched on a stool in front of him, a constant stream of complaints and sarcastic insults dribbling from his mouth like toxic pearls.

“It’s just the limit. Thanks to that bloody stalker I have to be here under a ridiculous pseudonym,” he’s complaining now. “There are only two pubs! It’s so quiet, everyone here is nearly dead. They might as well be dead. Maybe that’s what they want?"

Arthur has a fine line in melodramatic hyperbole. 

"That must be it," he carries on, voice rising, oblivious to Merlins eye-roll. "This is where people come to die.”

Shivering at Arthur’s words, and wondering for one churlish, murderous second if he can make them come true, Merlin wishes, not for the first time, that he’d had the foresight to say no to Uther despite the majestic price he got for _Grief and Power_.

“It beats me why anyone with blood in their veins would want to live here, _Mer_ lin,” Arthur rants. Merlin huffs a little at the implied insult. “It’s the dullest backwater I have ever been to. Don’t you ever want to live a little? Experience excitement, the thrill of cosmopolitan London? Have inadvisable sex somewhere stupid, with someone inappropriate, and get your name plastered all over the tabloids?”

The answer to this question is obvious to Merlin. Here in Tintagel, when the tourists get too much and he wants to escape from it all, he can just hop on his bicycle and meander down the lanes and footpaths to the quiet, secret spaces. There, he can listen to the restless sea and the lonely cries of the gulls, guillemots and kittiwakes, which conjure for him smooth and peaceful images in turquoise and olive-green. He can lie, cool, in the grass, staring at the clouds, and imagine butterflies in soothing shades of indigo, marine blue and cyan, while the waves splash and hiss against the jagged cliffs.

But other than shaking his head, he doesn’t reply. He can’t. Not with the handle of a paint-brush between his teeth. It’s there partly to stop him from giving the privileged, smirking tosser the tongue-lashing he most likely deserves, and partly because, despite himself, and much though he would never admit it to anyone, the irritating blond twat has got the sort of strong, well-defined facial features that make his fingers itch with the need to paint.

Besides which, if he zones out the actual words, Arthur’s voice is melodic; it’s like sun dancing on shivering sands, with a hint of gravel. It inspires the most vivid visions of a dancing, golden dragon, sometimes so dazzling that they obscure his handsome features altogether.

 

All of which means that Merlin needs both his hands to squeeze more shades of gold onto his palate.

Looking back at his wide range of subjects, at all the people he knows, he can’t think of anyone that inspired images as vivid. At least not since he was a child, when his mother’s voice,  as soft and warm as a summer breeze, as fierce and protective as an avenging angel, conjured up a sleek, black panther.

Unfortunately, the dragon is at its most intense when Arthur works himself up into a real tantrum.

It’s happening now. Arthur’s voice swells and becomes more acerbic, and as his lips curl up in a profoundly patronising sneer, Merlin lets him slip out of focus. Now he can see the dragon curling and writhing around Arthur. Its glowing tail whips across his wrists one second, his neck the next, so that Merlin wonders that Arthur doesn’t feel its scalding touch.

Merlin drags his eyes from this arresting sight, and squeezes out Bismuth Vanadate Yellow, Cadmium Yellow, and Aureolin onto his palette. He grabs the brush handle from between his teeth. Waggling his jaw, and scrunching up his lips, because he was using a 24 inch brush, and the weight of it between his teeth has made his jaw ache, he dips and swirls the tip into the mix, seeking the perfect hue.

Unfortunately, when Merlin’s massaging his lips, Arthur’s stops speaking and seems to be staring at his mouth, instead. The dragon starts to fade.

“Tell me more,” says Merlin, brush poised, biting his lip while he casts about for a topic that will return the heat to Arthur’s cheeks, the edge to his voice. “Tell me… tell me about your stalker. It’s all his fault you’re here in Tintagel, isn’t it? It must make you feel so… helpless.”

There, a sly poke at Arthur’s inflated yet sensitive ego should stoke the fires.

Arthur’s eyes narrow. “Are you deliberately trying to provoke me?” he says in a dangerous, growling voice. The dragon poised at his shoulder brightens as if waiting to pounce.

Gleefully, Merlin grabs tubes of Lemon Yellow, True Ochre, and Antique Gold. “No! Not at all!” Well, yes.

“Bloody hell, in that case you really are the most appallingly insensitive idiot I’ve ever had the displeasure to have to deal with. What my father was thinking, sending me to this God-forsaken miserable rear-end of a place, I really don’t know.”

With that, Arthur’s off again. Perfect. His tirade brings his voice back up to full volume, and the dragon towers over Merlin, magnificent in its outrage.

Merlin smiles and hums as he works, and is gratified to see how this makes Arthur’s face shine red with indignation. His voice rises in pitch, and the dragon positively glows. Every time Arthur peppers his speech with pithy consonants, pale orange fire spits from the dragon’s mouth. Laughing in sheer delight, Merlin squeezes out dollops of Cadmium Orange, Naples Yellow and Titanium White, and gathers them with swift, methodical sweeps of his brush.

Abruptly, Arthur rises from his chair. “You are unbe-fucking-lievable,” he yells, as Merlin peppers the canvas with frantic strokes, desperately trying to capture the essence of the beast’s vivid scales, sinews, and bones into his rough outline. “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying. Stop bloody grinning. You’re laughing at me. Are you completely mad?”

Raising his hand, Merlin begs him to wait. “Look, I’m sorry I upset you… it’s just… the expression of righteous anger really suits your bone structure - hey, look, please just sit again for me, all right? I swear you’ll like the end result. Please. Just. It’s all right. I don’t mean to make you feel bad.”

And it’s true. Looking at Arthur’s lowering glare, he feels a genuine pang of remorse.

“Look, tell me about your stalker, I won’t laugh again, I wasn’t laughing at you, I promise. I am an artist, I… I just find you easier to paint when you’re frowning.” Merlin sighs, and tries an encouraging smile. Tact has never been his strong point. “I might have teased you a bit. I’m sorry. Look. Please come back, all right? Come and sit. Not much longer today.”

His speech, however clumsy, seems to mollify Arthur, and he stops pacing to settle back on his chair, scowling only a little. The dragon fades to a pale ghost, flaring umber when Arthur starts speaking again in a low voice.

Merlin observes the way that the shadows gather beneath Arthur’s eye sockets, and gently works with a size-zero script brush to trace delicate burnt-umber lines onto his canvas.

“Yeah, I have a stalker,” Arthur’s saying. “He calls himself Mordred, God only knows what his real name is. He’s a bit of a nutter, but I reckon he’s harmless. Thinks I’m the Once and Future King, of all things. I don’t know where people get these ridiculous notions from. I’m just someone who plays the guitar and sings.”

Merlin grins as he sketches in sculpted cheekbones that frame a patrician nose and a pair of proud and haughty eyes. He’s beginning to think he understands this guy Mordred’s obsession. Whoever or whatever Arthur decides to become, he’s never going to be “just” anything.

He’d like to paint this more pensive Arthur. When Arthur speaks quietly, the slumbering dragon is almost translucent, like a liquid—Merlin thinks of limoncello with drops of grenadine. He can almost believe that Arthur’s forgetting himself for a moment.

“Have you told the police?”

Arthur chuckles mirthlessly. “No, I don’t know what to do about it,” he says. “I think the guy needs help, because he’s clearly delusional. But I don’t think he’s a criminal.”

When he looks up, his expression uncertain, the troubled expression in Arthur’s eyes makes Merlin’s heart jump.

“What would you do, Merlin?”

It must be a trick. For a moment there, Merlin thinks he can see past the thick, obnoxious, blustering facade to an earnest man who wants to do the right thing, but—bound by circumstance, and so buried beneath an avalanche of public expectation that he’s paralysed—is unable to find the way.

God help him, but suddenly that is the man Merlin yearns to paint.

“I don’t know,” Merlin says, not understanding why his throat suddenly feels thick. “Just… be careful whom you trust, Arthur. That’s all you can do.”

oo80808oo

It’s one of those can’t-make-it’s-mind-up Spring days. The skies are swallowed up by lowering clouds littered with shreds of pale blue one moment, and drenched with sunshine the next. Arthur and Merlin sit outside one of Tintagel’s numerous tea-shops, swigging tea from china cups.

“So why are you really here, Arthur?” asks Merlin, dabbing blobs of pale-primrose clotted cream onto a scone, and ladling great round, crimson mounds of sumptuous strawberry jam on top. When he crams a messy mouthful of this mountainous confection into his eager mouth, Arthur’s shoulders start to shake. “What?”

When Arthur laughs, he does not hold back. Merlin watches with a grin as Arthur tips his head right back into a full-throated guffaw. His generous shoulders are heaving with mirth

“You are such a child, Merlin,” he says, choking a little. “You have crumbs on your chin, jam on your mouth and cream on your nose. Your face is a jammy scone.” The expression in his eyes is warm, almost fond.

Feeling his cheeks heating, Merlin licks his lips, and is rewarded with an extra blob of jam.  Looking up, he sees Arthur’s eyes tracking the movement of his mouth, and he swallows.

There’s a kind of ease springing up between them, and a strange tension at the same time. Something is building. He can’t put a name to it yet, but when Arthur smiles at him like that, it fills him with yearning.

“You haven’t answered my question,” he says, dabbing at his nose with his finger and chuckling when it comes away covered in cream, which he ladles into his mouth.

Arthur shakes his head and sighs, a rueful grin playing around his lips.

“I suppose I just wanted to please my father,” he says at last. The sun chooses that moment to burst forth, illuminating Arthur’s pale hair in a soft nimbus. Merlin swallows, momentarily blinded—and not by the sun.

ooO8O8Ooo

 

“Mr Penhaligon? Mr Penhaligon? All right, my handsome?” Alice thumps on the bedroom door again, shrugging apologetically at Merlin. She runs the B & B where Arthur is staying. Her rich Cornish voice is calm, a soothing mixture of fresh, pale-daffodil yellow and rich, pine green.

“I don’t know why he’s so late, Merlin, dear,” she says, wincing as an unidentified projectile thuds against the other side of the door, accompanied by a loud bellowing noise that jangles in Merlin’s skull. “But he’s clearly got his knickers in a swizzle about something. He’s as teasy as an adder. He was up ‘til all hours strumming that guitar of his, lovely it was, but I was tired and I had to turn my hearing aid off! And he didn’t make it down for breakfast this morning. I’d have got him up earlier, but I’m not as mobile as I was in my doctoring days, and I’d the other guests to see about. And now he’s in a right old tizz.”

“Don’t worry, Alice,” he says. “You leave me here to get him up. He’s clearly got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.” He consults his watch. “This afternoon, even.”

“All right, thank you Merlin, my love. I’ll drop by dreckly with that brownie recipe, shall I? Just remember to smash the walnuts into smithereens, I say.” She turns and makes her way slowly down the stairs, clutching the bannisters.

“Thanks, Alice.”

He thumps the door, less gently than she. “Arthur, don’t be such an arrogant arse. Alice is a diamond and she deserves far better than that.”

“Fuck off,” yells a distant voice.

He raps at the door again, so hard it hurts his knuckles. “Arthur. You do know that your father is paying me by the hour, and the clock started over three hours ago. Arthur?”

The door opens and a blurry, shirtless vision emerges, all indistinct, sleep-rumpled hair and warm-looking skin. _Naples Yellow,_ Merlin thinks, automatically, consulting his mental palette, _with a hint of Iridescent Copper and Titan Buff._

“Fuck off,” this vision says, succinctly, before moving to close the door.

But Merlin’s too fast for him, and has his foot jammed in the way as he fights an unfathomable urge to smooth that ruffled-looking hair. “Oh no, you don’t,” he says. “You come with me, _Mr Penhaligon_. Nice alias by the way.”

“Are all painters this irritating?” says Arthur, lip curling at one corner. “Do they teach you that at painter school? One of your modules, is it? How to annoy the fuck out of your clients.” Releasing the door, he steps back inside, turning his back without bothering to check whether Merlin’s following him or not.

Standing in the door, propped against the frame with his arms crossed, Merlin doesn’t grace this churlish question with a reply. Contenting himself with an eyeroll and a puff of breath, he takes the opportunity to glance at the enticing sight of Arthur’s broad, naked shoulders and boxer-clad rump when he steps back into his pit to dress.

It’s a very fine rear view, he thinks, sketching out the curves of Arthur’s bum in his head, plump without being fat, with supple, rippling thighs, and well-defined muscles under the pale fabric of his boxers that hint at of an underlying strength and grace. His body hair is a shade darker than the thatch on his head - yellow ochre mixed with something delicious and silky, like syrup.

“When you’ve quite finished ogling my arse, you filthy pervert.”

Merlin’s mind snaps back to the present, which contains a mocking grin, tense jaw, and steely blue glare.

“I was just wondering if you’d pose nude for me,” he says, without thinking, and then feels his face heating up. “I mean… I… I’m sorry, but...” he steps backwards, suddenly realising how this looks with him on the threshold of his near-naked subject’s bedroom. “Shit! I didn’t mean… erm, well, think about it. I’m a painter, I’ve got a fine appreciation of the male form, and I can assure you that yours is top notch.”

“I wasn’t looking for a review, _Mer_ lin!” says Arthur, although his expression softens, and a fleeting mischievous smile flits across his face.

“I’ll… I’ll just let you… erm. Get dressed,” says Merlin, with a cough, inexplicably wrong-footed by this exchange. “See you downstairs.”

ooO8O8Ooo

When at last they’re settling in at the studio, Arthur finally breaks the silence.

“He’s found me,” Arthur says, his voice hoarse and ragged, so that Merlin’s struck by the new-minted darkness in the ever-present dragon’s eyes.

Arthur looks up from the stool where he’s perched, and his eyes are large and round in the bright noon sunlight that streams in through the window of Merlin’s studio, highlighting Arthur’s sculpted features in stark relief.

“My stalker. Mordred. He’s found me. Well, he’s found my phone number, anyway. He keeps sending messages to the “Once and Future King,” full of nonsense about my destiny, that I should be sleeping under the mountain, ready to rise at Albion’s need.” He lets out a mock-bitter laughs. “Funny that, because right now, the last thing I can do is sleep.”

“You should tell the police, if you’re worried,” says Merlin, sketching in details of Arthur’s still- messy hair. “Has he threatened you?”

“No!” says Arthur. “Not as such. But he knows I’m in Cornwall. He says he’s on his way down here. To meet his destiny.” There’s a vulnerable expression in his eyes, and his words send the golden dragon flitting and darting round the room, panting agitated gusts of orange and crimson flame.

Struck by an inexplicable protective urge, Merlin drops his paintbrush with a clatter and a curse.

“How the hell did he find out where you are?” Merlin says, bending to retrieve his brush, and stepping to the sink to rinse it.

Arthur shrugs. “I think… I think my sister might have complained on Facebook. About me having a portrait painted. I think… I think Mordred might know my sister.”

His voice drops to a whisper. “I think he might know that I’m sitting for you.” As Arthur speaks, the dragon hovers over Merlin, then swoops and swirls around him with a proprietary air. “I think he might… he might try to use you to get at me.” When its reptilian tongue darts out to lick Merlin’s wrist, it sketches a trail of warmth along his flesh. It comes to rest coiled protectively around his neck, like a scarf.

This invisible display simultaneously makes his heart pound in exultation and his chest tighten in forboding, because it’s pretty clear from the dragon’s actions that Arthur’s been up all night worrying about what his stalker might do to Merlin.

They stare dumbly at one another for a long moment before Merlin shrugs and resumes working.

“Don’t worry about me,” he says, smiling broadly to hide his concern. “I’ll be fine.”

But he knows he isn’t, he isn’t fine at all, and it’s nothing to do with Arthur’s stalker. Because the soul of this big-hearted man with his bruised-looking eyes and his rosy, worried lips has taken up residence under his skin, and God help him, but Merlin’s beginning to feel that he wants him to stay there forever.

ooO8O8Ooo

It’s always a tense moment, revealing the initial rough colour sketches to a subject, especially one who is not aware of how Merlin’s synaesthesia pervades his portraits. In fairness, for many of his portraits, what he hears only influences the final outcome in a minor way - affecting perhaps hints of colour in their clothing or the light of the room. Not many subjects inspire impressions with the same brightness and immediacy that Arthur does.

Arthur views the sketches and drafts with the kind of intensity that imbues all his actions. They’ve been arranged around the room, and slowly he paces from one to the next, examining each one silently before turning to the next.

Merlin doesn’t break the silence. He feels that it’s important to let his subjects take the lead in portraiture; he wants to feel that the end result is a mutually agreed fusion of the artist and his muse. So he wills himself to stay silent, and bites his lip to stop it from trembling.

When Arthur looks up at him, his expression is unfathomable, and he stares at Merlin as if seeing him for the first time. Merlin can hear the seconds ticking away by the heavy thud of his pulse in his ears. Outside, a robin breaks the silence with a trilling song that awakens Merlin’s senses, sweet and full of hope, blue and gold, like a river sparkling in the sunshine.

He can see Arthur’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows, watches his tongue dart out to moisten his lip before he speaks.

“This,” he says, pointing at the canvases in the room. “This is what you see? In me?”

Merlin nods, but does not smile.

“Are you taking something?” says Arthur, frowning.

Merlin laughs. “Do I look like I’m taking something?”

“I don’t know what to say,” says Arthur. He sits, heavily, burying his head in his hands so that his hair is rucked up between his fingers.

“Are there any that you think you might like?” says Merlin. “I mean, take your time. You don’t have to make any quick decisions. It’s all about finding something that we both believe in.”

Arthur’s shaking his head, and when he looks up, Merlin draws in a sharp breath at his earnest expression.

“You believe in me,” Arthur says, and Merlin feels his throat tighten at the deepness of Arthur’s voice, and the way it trembles. The golden dragon dances wildly around the room, its tail whipping past the pictures. “I… I don’t know what to say. Thank you, Merlin. Most people look at me and see… they see what they want to see, a layabout, a sleazy rock star, but you… you paint me like I’m something... special. Like I’m a real person. Like you see the whole of me, not just the… the public bit.”

Merlin steps forward and grasps his upper arms, gazing at those dazzling, wide-open, uncertain eyes, and bitten-pink lips.

“You are something special,” he says, softly. “Not just the music—although that is special too, of course. But there’s more to you than meets the eye, Arthur Pendragon, you are hiding so many aspects of yourself, but I see them and they’re…” breath-taking, he wants to say. “...Here, in my portraits. I hope.”

He’s rewarded by a sweet smile of such sincerity that it makes his breath catch.

“What makes you see people like this?” says Arthur, idly tracing the paintwork on one sketch of the dragon with a curious finger. “What do you see?”

Merlin shrugs. “It’s not something conscious - it’s just that… Sounds have always painted pictures for me. In my head, I suppose. So, in my art I’ve always tried to express those pictures on paper. I thought it was magic, when I was a child. My mum was worried about me but I think it’s a gift. It helps me to see peoples’ true natures. I mean, I can see things that other people don’t. Like you, for example.”

“Me?”

“Yes, I could see you were an uptight prat, straight away!”

Arthur thumps him gently and laughs. “Most people don’t need a gift to see that.”

“Mum was worried I might be schizophrenic,” Merlin adds. “She thought I was having hallucinations. She took me to doctors, psychologists, neurologists. They called it synaesthesia, for want of anything else to call it. I prefer to think of it as… inspiration. Visions. Extra senses. I don’t care what it’s called; it is just a part of me, that’s all. My senses bleed into one another.”

“I always knew there was something about you, Merlin.” Arthur’s prowling around the room, gazing at each painting in turn, pausing in front of a simple sketch of him with a guitar. Tiny dragons chase one another, darting in and out of his fingers as he strums. “Do you see all people like this?”

“I… react more strongly to some people than others. If I have a powerful connection with them. Like… like my mother, for example, she is like a black panther, all velvet claws and hidden strength. I always felt safe with her. When I try really hard, I can almost feel her now, even though she’s far away. It’s really comforting, even though I’m sure it’s all in my head.”

“This synaesthesia - it must make sex interesting.” Arthur’s voice and manner are nonchalant, disinterested, but as he speaks the coiled dragon lifts his head, eyes glowing bright for a second before fading out, and Merlin knows that Arthur’s paying close attention.

“Depends who it’s with.” Merlin shrugs. “If there’s a strong connection, it can be… electrifying. Dazzling. Brilliant. Isn’t that the same for everybody?”

Arthur looks away for a moment, and appears to be examining his fingernails.

“I don’t know,” he says in a low voice. “I don’t know what’s in their heads when they have sex with me. I don’t think it’s really me. It’s _him_. The public Arthur. I hate him, sometimes. It’s weird, because he’s me. But he isn’t me.”

The surge of empathy that wells up threatens to overwhelm Merlin. “I’ve never really understood how lonely it must be... to be famous, I mean. To have a public image. I mean... I am known, but I can walk down the street without being recognised.”

Looking up at Merlin, Arthur shrugs.

“It has its plus sides, too,” he says with a wan smile. “For example, if I wasn’t famous, my father wouldn’t suggest that I come and have my portrait painted by a renowned painter. Would he? And I would never have met you.”

Heart hammering, Merlin inches forward until their faces are so close together that he can feel Arthur’s breath stirring the hairs on his cheek.

“For your information,” Merlin whispers, “my connection to you is about as strong as it gets.”

“Is that right?” One side of Arthur’s mouth quirks up in a sly grin.

When their lips finally touch, Merlin closes his eyes against the dazzling lights that explode across his vision, and he hears a groan of longing deep in Arthur’s throat that sends his pulse racing.

The sound of a mobile phone beeping pierces Merlin like the jab of a needle. Startled, he and Arthur jump apart.

Muttering an apology, Arthur fumbles in his pocket and, stilling, frowns at his beeping phone. “Shit,” he says, raking his hand through his hair in seeming agitation.

The moment has passed, and Merlin, bereft, needs to retreat to make sense of his jumbled emotions.

“Ermmm…” he says, so tight-throated that his voice sounds thick. “Look… take as long as you need to look at the sketches… Feel free to take that call, or whatever... I’m popping out for a coffee - do you want me to bring you anything?”

But Arthur, distracted, still looking at his phone with a tense line furrowing his brow, doesn’t answer.

Sighing and stretching his cramped muscles, Merlin pulls on his trainers. Looking out of the window at the vile weather, he adds a fleece-lined cagoule and trudges out into the rain. When he gets back ten minutes later, Arthur hasn’t moved.

“Is everything all right?” says Merlin.

“What? Oh. Erm. I… yeah, it’s fine. I’m fine.” Arthur doesn’t look fine, and he sounds decidedly shaky. The normally golden dragon, awoken by Arthur’s voice, is barely visible. As Merlin watches, Arthur pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Here, I got you a hot chocolate.” Handing it to him, Merlin peels off his dripping raincoat and toes off his sodden trainers. “It’s grim out there. Look, I’m sorry if… if this wasn’t something you wanted… if you’re not feeling well… erm, I shouldn’t have... perhaps we should resume tomorrow… It was unprofessional of me, I mean, the, er, kiss, I’m sorry, I didn’t know if you...look, I hope you haven’t had bad news… I mean, it’s okay, you don’t have to tell me...” He’s not making any sense, he’s just saying anything to cover up this terrible anxiety that’s making his shoulders ache.

“Yeah,” says Arthur. “I do feel a bit… yeah. Look, I’ll see you tomorrow, all right?” He smiles wanly. “I’m sure I’ll be… I’ll be fine. And don’t worry, I did want it, this, with you...I mean. Kissing you. I think you’re… look, you’re amazing, with your incredible talent and your sweet tooth and your impossible insights… I want… I just… I’m not feeling a hundred percent, that’s all. Look...”

He darts forward and touches Merlin’s chin, then brings their mouths together for another brief kiss, so fleeting that he could have imagined it, if it wasn’t for the fact that even that slightest of touches scorches his lips so that he gasps.

Arthur’s soft moan sends a heavy curl of heat deep into Merlin’s belly.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” croaks Merlin, not wanting to break the contact. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Merlin. I’m not a girl; you don’t have to walk me home.”

Frowning, Merlin watches him go, and shivers at the black, oppressive feeling that settles over him, reflected in the angry clouds, looming and scudding across the rain-drenched sky. Stepping to the window, he watches Arthur trudge down the street, hidden beneath his oversized umbrella.

There’s a sudden flash and a distant rumble; hail clatters against the window, a forlorn rat-tat-tat, jagged white shrapnel.

 While he watches, a shadow detaches itself from the wall of the house opposite, resolving into the form of a man, huddled deep inside a trenchcoat and sou’wester. This figure trails off down the street in Arthur’s wake.

He tells himself that there’s absolutely no reason for this ordinary sight to make icy fingers of dread play up and down his spine. Mentally shaking himself, he goes back to cleaning and reorganising his brushes ready for the next day.

ooO8O8Ooo

That night, when a crack of thunder intrudes into his consciousness, so loud that it makes the windows in the flat rattle, Merlin, plagued by restless dreams, wakes up gasping for breath, heart pounding. The wind sounds like a freight train, or a wolf howling, or if he’s going to be fanciful, a dragon screaming.

Throwing off the covers, he pads over to the window. Angry, insistent gusts of wind drive the rain battering and pounding against the glass, as if trying to gain entry. A distant, plaintive keening sound swells and floods his vision with golden, desperate light.

He closes his eyes for a second. When he re-opens them his legs buckle in sudden terror.

Pressed hard up at the window is a huge, gaping maw, dazzling and golden, stark titanium-white teeth silhouetted against a dark-burgundy cavern, stained with lamp-black. The roaring lament is deafening now, even with the window closed.

Arthur’s dragon.

Merlin’s scream is echoed by the dragon, which lets out agonised, blood-curdling cries that make the marrows of his bones ache, make the hairs on his arms and legs start and tingle.

“Arthur!” he yells.

Instinctively, he knows that Arthur is in terrible danger. When he releases the sash window, the dragon’s shape and form intensify. It swoops into the room. Dancing in mad, circling figures, it flies back out, and then in again. It darts past Merlin, so close that he imagines he can feel the heat from its breath.

Vividly he hears Arthur’s voice. He's screaming above the howl of the wind and the incessant drumming rain. Merlin’s suddenly convinced that the stalker, Mordred, has found Arthur.

“Arthur!” Merlin yells, heart pounding. He's hoping that in some crazy way Arthur can hear him via the dragon. “I am coming. I am coming. I will come and help you. Arthur, don’t worry.”

But this is ridiculous. What’s he doing, trying to communicate via a hallucinatory dragon? Fumbling on the bedside table, he picks up his mobile. He selects “Arnold Penhaligon”. With trembling fingers, he presses the “dial” button.

It rings a couple of times. His pulse quickens when it’s answered. Arthur must be all right after all. He sinks back down onto his bed with an overwhelming sense of relief.

“Arthur?” he says, trying to hide the way that his voice wavers. He’s been an idiot. He’s calling Arthur in the middle of the night because an imaginary dragon came to him and told him Arthur was in trouble; he winces when he imagines the explosion of self-righteousness this will detonate.

But his relief is short lived. The voice that answers Arthur's phone is not one that he recognises.

“Ah. Emrys,” says the voice. Warm, with a slight Welsh accent, it nevertheless conjures demonic visions in demented, discordant purple and yellow. 

Merlin shivers. “Who is this?” he says, sharply. “Where’s Arthur? I want to speak to him.”

The seemingly innocent chuckle has psychotic undertones that flash in bright, warning colours at the edge of his vision. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” says the voice. “The Once and Future King is a little bit… how shall we say? Tied up, at present.” Again the mirthless laugh that sets his teeth on edge. “I have fulfilled my destiny, and he will soon fulfil his. Albion will be secure again, now that its king is restored to his place under the mountain.”

“Who are you?” shouts Merlin. “What have you done? I’ll call the police!”

“I am Mordred. Call them if you like. What will they do? They’ll trace Arthur’s phone to this van here in Tavistock, and what then?”

“Where is Arthur? Is he with you?”

“Do you think I’m completely stupid? Of course he isn’t. I will send a message to his father. It is fitting that he should find him.” And with that, the phone call ends abruptly. Cursing, Merlin tosses the phone down onto his bed. He stares around the room for inspiration. He’s no idea where Arthur can be. But he’s sure he’s in danger. And Merlin is the only one that can rescue him.

He calls the police at Launceston anyway, and leaves a message. The dragon twirls agitatedly around his feet like a cat. It flits back and forth between him and the window while he drags on some clothes.

“Do you want me to follow you?” He swears that the dragon nods. “OK. I must be crazy.”

He pauses by the door to grab a weapon, scrabbling in a drawer until his hand lights upon his Swiss army knife. Putting it into his pocket he dashes out to where his bicycle is locked up, still with its grocery trailer attached. With rain-slick hands, already cold and clumsy, he fumbles with the lock. Breathing heavily, he jumps on his bike. He pedals furiously in the dragon’s wake. The pale lights of his head-torch and bike fail to illuminate anything other than driving, furious rods of rain.

After a few minutes, it’s obvious where the dragon’s going. He really should have known. He thinks he really did, deep down. It’s headed towards the cove of Tintagel. The mystical cove where over millennia, the waves have sliced caverns through the ragged cliffs. Where, according to legend, the Once and Future King was conceived through treachery, and born of Ygraine, wife of Gorlois.

It’s reckless to be cycling so fast down this steep road, in this weather, in the dark. The lane ends abruptly in a dropoff onto the tiny beach. So Merlin brakes and slithers off the saddle. Half-walking, half-running with his bike and trailer down to the empty visitor centre, he approaches the steep crags with trepidation.

The dragon’s burning bright and fierce now.

Arthur must be near.

Heart in his mouth, Merlin watches the dragon launch itself off the edge and approach the cave. Its golden glow lights the swirling, tumultuous sea, boiling, and bubbling as it foams towards the black chasm under the hill.

Deep below, he can just make out the inky swirls of water that nearly fill the cove. The tide must be almost in. But there’s still a thin sliver of beach visible between rushing waves.

“Arthur!” he shouts, but the winds snatch his voice. There’s a loud boom as a huge wave cracks against the cliffs along the shore. A lightning flash briefly illuminates the cove in stark black-and-white relief, momentarily blinding him in the returning darkness. A deep crack of thunder echoes in its wake.

With a leap of faith he steps forward. Bypassing the gates and fences designed to prevent tourists from injuring themselves, he slithers down the jagged, slippery rocks, fingers scrabbling for purchase. He’s strong, he knows, but he can’t feel his extremities. He is shivering from cold and worry, and he worries about gashing his artist’s hands on the sharp stone.

Suddenly, his foot slips out from under him. Feeling his weight drag him towards the precipitous edge of a boulder, he cries out in alarm. Desperately he manages to cling on. He gropes his way to safety, edging along the rock until he has a firmer purchase. There he stays for a moment, trembling, heart juddering.

“Arthur!” he shouts again. This time he thinks he hears a faint reply, a brief yellowish flash in the grey, dark drizzle.

He wills himself to continue, and lowers himself gently to the next rock. He feels a profound sense of relief when at last gravel crunches under his feet. He’s reached the beach.

With renewed purpose, he takes a few strides to cross it, dodging the waves.

There’s a shape huddled at the water’s edge. It vanishes beneath a wave and then reappears. Shocked, he sees something move by the light of his head-torch, and hears a heaving cough.

“Arthur!” He’s frustrated by another wave, but he waits for a suitable moment when the waters momentarily retreat, and then runs, heart pounding, through the roiling shallows.

Arthur is there, bound by his wrists to the cliffs by a rope attached to ring set into the rock, for a buoy or a boat mooring. Cursing, Merlin pulls out his Swiss army knife and starts to saw at the rope.

Another wave engulfs them. Gasping with the sudden cold, he clings on to Arthur, desperately trying to get his footing firm in the heavy gravel, to avoid being sucked back out to sea as it retreats. The drag of the current is almost irresistible. But Arthur is clutching onto his arm, and he remains in the shallows on hands and knees when it recedes.

Hacking gracelessly at the remaining strands of rope, he finally frees Arthur.

“It’s all right, Arthur, I’ve got you,” he yells, not knowing if Arthur can hear him through the gale, half walking, half dragging him across the gravel before the next large wave can knock them off their feet.

Arthur doesn’t speak.

Merlin concentrates on getting him as far away from the water as possible. He tries not to think about how he’s going to get Arthur all the way back up the broken, tumbling scarp at the cove edge. Instead he focuses on one boulder at a time, easing and encouraging him all the way, clutching on to the rock with one hand, and a groggy, floppy Arthur with another.

Later he won’t have a clue how he’s managed it, but he will always swear that the dragon is helping him, lending him strength whenever he starts to slither back towards the seething waters.

Shivering uncontrollably, he manoeuvres Arthur, unprotesting, into his creaking grocery trailer, and trudges up the steep hill back towards the village, pushing his bike all the way.

ooO8O8Ooo

And so it is that Alice is confronted with a vision of two pale, trembling, sodden men on her doorstep at some ungodly hour in the morning, one with bleeding rope burns at his wrists, and the other nearly dropping to his knees with exhaustion. And being a kind-hearted soul, to Merlin’s great relief, instead of bellowing at them about the ridiculous time, she takes them into her warm kitchen, and brings them towels, dry pyjamas from Arthur’s room, and an extensive collection of duvets and blankets.

Ignoring their protests, with only the bare minimum amount of scolding, once they’re dry she thoroughly examines them both.

“Well, you’re shivering, which is a good sign. Cough for me, Arthur,” she says. He does so, obediently, and she nods. “Good.” She feels his pulse and takes his temperature. She repeats the exercise with Merlin, and pronouncing them both hypothermic, but not to the point of death, she bustles around heating soup, and making tea.

“Mr Penhaligon,” she says. “You are old enough to know better than going down to the beach in this weather. You’re not in London now, you know. Here, drink this.” She thrusts a bowl full of thick, chunky vegetable soup on the table in front of them both. “I should normally phone for a bleedin’ ambulance, I should, but you’re in good hands with me. I was a doctor you know, before I retired. As for you, Merlin Emrys, you’ve lived hereabouts for long enough. You should bloody well be ashamed of yourself, putting Mr Penhaligon in danger like that.”

“Rest assured that I have no desire to repeat the experience, Mrs Treskellion,” says Arthur, between chattering teeth.

“Hmm. Well, Mr Emrys, you needn’t think you’re going home tonight, in this weather,” she adds. “I’ll make you up a bed in Mr Penhaligon’s room. Besides which I want to keep an eye on the both of you until I’m sure you’re out of the woods.”

“Thank you, Alice,” says Merlin, jerkily, unable to control the way that his body is juddering and shaking.

Bustling out of the room and muttering to herself about duvet covers and spare blankets, she leaves the room pregnant with silence and unanswered questions.

“Are you going to ask first, or shall I?” says Merlin, eventually.

Arthur huffs out a chuckle, like a car struggling to start on a rainy day. “You go first,” he says.

Merlin swirls the dregs of his tea around his cup for a minute or two, and tosses it down before answering.

“So. You going to tell me the truth about how you ended up tethered to a rock on Tintagel beach on a rising tide, Arthur? Or are you going to pretend it’s some sort of kink that went wrong?”

The laugh still sounds shaky, and Merlin thinks he can see tears start in Arthur’s eyes.

“Look,” says Arthur, “it was him, OK? I was in your studio, and he… he sent me a text, saying that he was in Tintagel, and that he was going to… he threatened you, Merlin, and...I couldn’t, Merlin! I couldn’t let him do that to you! So I had to meet him, he said he just wanted to talk to me. We went for a pint at the Olde Malthouse. And suddenly I felt really awful… I can’t remember what happened.” The colours and shapes Arthur’s voice conjures, normally so clear and bright, blur and shimmer in and out of focus as if Arthur is drunk.

“You stupid man,” says Merlin, horror casting a shadow over him like a net as he realised the implications of Arthur’s words. “Bloody hell. He must have slipped you roofies. Shit, Arthur. Do you have no sense of self preservation? Shit. You have got to tell the police, Arthur! We should take you to hospital!”

“Yeah, all right, I know I should have told the police, but not the hospital, please Merlin!”

“He could have killed you!” Merlin’s trembling now, a sudden sense of loss threating to overwhelm him. “I might have lost you! God, you idiot.”

Arthur stares at him, his eyes huge in the dim firelight, and Merlin realises what he’s just said.

“Fuck!” he adds lamely, running his hand through his hair.

“But you found me, Merlin. How did you find me?”

“I….” Merlin’s not sure how to explain. “I erm… You know, I see things. I see sounds. Whatever. And with you… I don’t know why, OK, maybe it’s because you’re an epic pillock, or maybe it’s because I fancy you rotten, and I see you so vividly, you know, I see dragons when you speak… anyway, this dragon came to see me, and it was mad, I swear, it was you. I could hear your voice, and you were screaming. Screaming, Arthur!” Suddenly realising that he was shouting, Merlin stops abruptly, throat feeling thick. “I thought you were dying, I was so scared.”

Great, dark, unblinking eyes stare at him across the firelit kitchen table.

He swallows and carries on. “I called your phone, and _he_ answered… Mordred, I mean. He was going on about destiny and the king under the mountain. He sounded… his voice scared me. And then I… I followed it. The dragon. And that’s how I found you. Arthur. Arthur? Arthur are you all right?”

“Gonna be sick,” says Arthur, surging to his feet and striding to the sink. Merlin just has the presence of mind to pull away the washing-up bowl and Arthur’s heaving Alice’s soup into the sink, great surging spasms wracking his shoulders.

“Hey,” Merlin says, not sure what to do, so he tries for a soothing sort of up-and-down back rub. “It’s OK now, you’re safe.”

“I’m not though, am I?” says Arthur. “And neither are you. Because he’s still out there.” He retches again, and Merlin shuts his eyes.

“He doesn’t know you’re here,” says Merlin, trying to be reassuring, “He thinks he’s left you down there, on a rising tide. He must think you’re drowned by now.” Hard on that realisation comes another, and it makes the breath leaves him in a rush. “Oh my God! You have to phone your father, Arthur. He said he was going to tell him! And we have to call the police. Mordred has your phone. Shit. Mordred has your phone.”

At that moment the door opens, and Alice strides in, still muttering to herself about laundry and central heating.

“Alice,” says Merlin, turning but keeping his hand on Arthur’s back for reassurance as he heaves again. “What do you know about the aftermath of rohypnol?”

“Rohypnol?” says Alice, eyes widening. “Oh my poor, poor dear Mr Penhaligon, you have been in the wars and no mistake.”

At that moment Merlin feels, rather than hears, an urgent, thudding drum beat distantly nudging at his consciousness, and he frowns, turning his head to try to locate its source as it grows gradually louder and more insistent.

“Do you hear that?” he says to Arthur, who nods, although Alice shakes her head.

It gets a little louder, and it’s more like a “whomp whomp” sound, that flashes a vivid titanium white in Merlin’s eyes until he realises that the flashes are not actually related to the sound; they’re really there, casting sharp shadows, bone black across the bare work surfaces.

Drawing the duvets and blankets around him, Merlin steps towards the window, peering into the field behind Alice’s house. The noise is too loud to make speech heard, now, as a helicopter settles onto its skids, like a crouching mosquito, and then gradually its rotors slow to a halt.

The door opens, and Merlin sees a tall figure jump down on one side of the aircraft. What he isn’t expecting is the broad smile that transforms Arthur’s features, and the sudden gust of air when Arthur wrenches Alice’s kitchen door open.

“Father!” he yells into the deafening silence. “Over here!”

“Arthur? Thank God!” The answering voice is one that Merlin has heard before.

Trust Arthur to have a father who owns a helicopter.

Uther Pendragon has come to find his son.

Mordred’s message must have got through.

And that’s when the police finally turn up.

ooO8O8Ooo

It’s a miracle that Alice’s tiny kitchen is big enough to contain all that male ego, but luckily Inspector Gwen Smith has Arthur’s father eating out of her hand. Merlin’s content to let the room zone in and out of focus, answering the questions that the Inspector puts to him, but not really paying much attention to the answers any more. It’s warm in the room; he’s finally stopped shaking; he can feel his toes at last, and the low voices buzz and murmur reassuringly around him.

When a hand touches his shoulder and shakes it, he wakes up with a jolt.

“Mr Penhaligon - I mean Pendragon - looks all in, and you’re not much better, Mr Emrys,” says Alice. “Why don’t I make up a bed for Mr Penhaligon - erm Pendragon - senior, here? And perhaps, Inspector Smith, dear, you could pop back in the morning?”

Inspector Smith shakes her head. “I’m afraid I can’t leave,” she says. “Mr Pendragon, here, needs protection until we have secured the arrest of the person we’re looking for.”

“I’ll stay with Arthur,” Merlin croaks. “Keep an eye on him.” There’s no way he’s going to let anyone separate them again. It’s all he can do not to chuckle when the dragon nods, as if in approval.

In a daze, he allows himself to be led up the stairs and to slide beneath warm covers on the floor of Arthur’s bedroom, where he quickly falls into a deep slumber.

And when he awakes, heart pounding, from a vivid and terrifying dream, a warm body slips in beside him on the floor. A soothing voice purrs gently against his shoulders, and burly arms curl protectively around him. Sighing, heart slowing, he drifts off again.

ooO8O8Ooo

The next day there’s no sign of Mordred. The police can’t find any evidence that he even exists, and Arthur’s mobile phone has been found abandoned in a broken-down pick-up truck in Tavistock.

When the Inspector Smith advances the all-too-plausible hypothesis that Arthur faked the whole thing to engineer a return to London, a furious Uther buys it all.

“Your ridiculous, attention-seeking behaviour, has endangered both yourself and Mr Emrys, not to mention the upset you’ve caused to Mrs Treskellion, here, and the sheer terror that your sister and I felt when we received that telephone call in the middle of the night.”

Uther’s yelling so loudly that the veins stand out on his neck and temple.

“I don’t know which of your pathetic friends you persuaded to pretend to be a stalker, but I can assure you that I see right through this stunt, and I will not allow you to be rewarded for this irresponsible, reckless and foolish behaviour. You will finish this portrait as planned. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have important business to attend to back in London.”

“I don’t believe you, Father,” Arthur roars. “You are always prepared to believe the worst about me, and you never take my side!”

His voice conjures a riot of reptilian hurt. Merlin stares, fascinated as dragons of every conceivable hue from bitter blue to humiliated crimson throng the air, making Merlin’s fingers tingle with the desire to paint a dragonish battle, all lurid sparks and clashing claws.

“I am one hundred per cent certain that Arthur is telling the truth, Mr Pendragon,” says Merlin. “I saw someone following Arthur yesterday. And he was genuinely upset when he received the text from Mordred. I... I know he was drugged, and I’m sure he wasn’t faking his near drowning. Besides which, how did his phone end up in Tavistock…?”

“Your loyalty is touching, though misplaced, Mr Emrys,” interrupts Uther. He picks up his hat from the table and turns to exit, placing it upon his head.

He strides to the door and opens it, pausing for a minute in the doorway to scowl at Arthur.

“I knew you were lying, when you told me you had a stalker. You just had to jump on that celebrity bandwagon, didn’t you Arthur? That’s why I sent you down here in the first place. I was hoping that you would learn to live outside the limelight for once, but obviously you still need to learn that lesson. I will deal with you when you get back to London. After the portrait is finished, to my satisfaction.”

Although he knows it’s unprofessional, Merlin has to fight a bubbling temptation to sabotage all the portraits so that this criterion for Arthur’s departure is never met.

ooO8O8Ooo

Finally they’re alone, in Arthur’s bedroom.

“Thank you,” says Arthur, sounding gruff and uncertain. “For believing me, and for standing up for me. Of course, my father could never believe anything good about me. All he sees in me is my public image, so your attempt was futile, but thank you anyway.”

“Oh, Arthur,” says Merlin, stepping forward to grasp Arthur’s shoulders in reassuring hands, breath hitching with the electricity that jolts through him at even that contact. “You know I have an advantage over your father, I can see what you are really feeling.”

“Can you see what I feel now?” Arthur whispers, and it's as if the clarity of his searching gaze steals the oxygen from the air. All Merlin can do is nod and gulp, hoping that the wild thundering of his heart isn’t too obvious.

“Merlin,” whispers Arthur, his head dipping forward gently, arms escaping from Merlin’s grasp.

The dragon roars in Merlin’s head, swooping towards him and grazing his lips with a scorching touch that burns, making him gasp and close his eyes. He feels gentle lips on his, solid, warm and firm. Fingertips dance up his spine, making him arch and groan, and he doesn’t know where the dragon ends and Arthur begins. Arthur’s murmuring voice sends darts of pleasure scalding across his skin and his breath stutters with the strength of his desire.

“Arthur,” Merlin gasps, paralysed by the sensations that course through his body when Arthur touches him. “I can’t, you… !”

Surely those are real lips that ghost along his neck, real fingers that tease and tug at his clothes. Surely that's a real man whose voice is brokenly begging him for more, guiding his hands, firming them along the warm heft of his insistent prick. Surely that’s a real kiss that ignites his lips like wildfire, a comet blazoning a trail down Merlin’s spine, a fierce agonising burn of desire and hunger.

Merlin’s eyes fly open, and he’s grounded by the sweet, steady, warm flush of Arthur’s cheeks under his hands as he leans back in surrender, falling onto something soft, Arthur’s weight pressing onto him, Arthur’s lips crushing his.

Arthur speaks again, but Merlin can’t even make out the words. He’s giddy from the swirling colours that cloud his vision, dazzling him like sunlight with the strength of Arthur’s emotions. It’s as if they magnify Merlin’s capacity to sense, and it’s too much, and not enough, all at once. When Arthur cants his hips, just so, hard and lean along and above him, he tastes like indigo and crushed velvet, and he smells like hedonism and euphoria, an intoxicating blend that Merlin has never known he needed before, but he needs it now, needs it like he needs his next breath.

Blinded, Merlin moans and writhes under Arthur’s touch, arching his hips to seek the maddening heat and glide of groin against groin, sparks of delight igniting in his core and radiating through him.

“Look at you,” Arthur says. The trembling, breathless note in his voice sends whispers of pale gold snaking out along Merlin’s throat to gentle his ears, making him cry out with the sudden sensation. “You want this? God, Tell me you want this. Tell me it’s me you want, not Arthur the guitar player, not _him_ , but me.”

He’s caressing Merlin, with his voice and with his fingers. He doesn’t know which it is that kneads and strokes him with just the right amount of firmness, with just the right amount of warmth and wet slickness.

Regarding him with suddenly uncertain eyes, Arthur looks like he’s about to stop, and Merlin reaches out to touch silk-smooth hair, understanding what he means by _him_.

“I want this.” He’s whispering, unable to speak properly, throat tight and almost choking with the desperate need that engulfs him. “I want you. I want you, Arthur. Not the rock god, not the dutiful son. I want the man. I want the man that I see, the man that I paint. It’s you I want, not _him_. Please. Arthur. Don’t stop.”

Arthur nods, and smiles, a rare, incredulous smile that Merlin can’t help returning, feeling his eyes crinkle with the strength of it. Letting it turn sly, curling up one corner of his mouth, he rolls his hips up so that Arthur gasps.

“Don’t stop,” he says again in a growl.

Arthur’s low, earthy chuckle is echoed by a warmth along Merlin’s inner thighs that makes his heart thud.

A sudden sharp sensation fills him as Arthur bites his earlobe, and he can hear bells jangling. Pleasure builds and climbs within him with the frantic kneading of their hips, and he lets his legs drop open, pulls Arthur closer to gain more traction. Arthur’s firm body shudders and squirms at his fingertips. With a rough grunt that sends iridescence cascading across Merlin’s field of view, Arthur stills, tensing. Merlin feels weightless, buoyant. He tilts his hips up once, twice more, there’s a high keening noise, which he’s vaguely aware belongs to him, and the world turns blissfully white.

Merlin’s not sure how long it is before he returns to himself. When he does, he stares into questioning eyes that shimmer, Ultramarine with flecks of Cobalt and Prussian Blue, filled with such honesty and trust that he can scarcely remember to breathe.  And he knows, for him, the world has changed irrevocably.

After a while, when his heart rate is starting to return to normal, Arthur shifts up onto one elbow and looks down at him.

“So.” Post-coital Arthur has a deep, languid voice that rumbles through Merlin’s ribcage, like a sleeping dragon coiled protectively around him, making him feel drowsy and safe. “How was it for you?”

Merlin chuckles at the cliché, but isn’t fooled by Arthur’s casual manner. The next thing he says will be important.

“I… I don’t think that’s ever happened to me before,” he says, looking away, because it’s too intense, this sensation of laying himself bare. “When you touch me, it sparks sounds, scents, images, perceptions. It’s pretty intense.”

“Overwhelming, huh? You’re not the first person who’s told me that,” says Arthur in a mock-American accent, with a sly smile. Merlin punches him, and he chuckles, making Merlin grin back at him, easing some of his tension.

“Prick. What I mean is…” God. He can’t say it. It would make him sound like a girl.  “You’re going to think I’m a total sap.”

“Merlin, you are the bravest person I have ever met. You waded through the ocean to rescue me. You could tell me you believe in fairies, prefer to wear pink lace, and cry when you watch Teletubbies; I will still never call you a sap.” As Arthur speaks, strong hands glide across Merlin’s chest and cup his chin, grounding him.

Merlin gulps. “It’s just that… With you… I have never… I… It was… it was like nothing else on earth,” he says, voice trembling. “It… it scares me a little, I’ve never felt anything like this before. I could smell and taste your emotions… I can’t describe it. That’s it. I just can’t. You fill me in ways I can’t describe. There are no words. I’m going to have to paint it.”

When Arthur looks back at him, the shocked expression in his eyes makes the hairs on the back of Merlin’s neck stand on end, and his breathing falters.

“It was like that for me, too,” Arthur whispers. He bends and kisses Merlin gently on the lips, smoothing his fingers through Merlin’s hair with trembling, agitated fingers. “I never wanted it to stop. It terrified me. Before, when I’ve had sex with people, it was like they were with someone else, someone that they thought I was. And I couldn’t wait to leave. But with you… it was over too fast, I found myself wondering if we could do it again… right here, right now… and again, and again.”

Merlin chuckles soundlessly into Arthur’s chest hair, his hand whispering to the crease of Arthur’s steely thigh.

“You’ll have no complaints from me there.”

At that moment, Merlin’s phone beeps.

“Ignore it,” says Arthur.

Merlin groans. “I can’t,” he says. “It’s probably a commission I can’t afford to miss.”

He rolls over and pokes sleepily at his phone until it blinks into life, and then stares at it, rubbing his eyes. “Arthur?”

“Wha...?”

“You’d better see this.”

They peer at the screen together.

It’s a message from an unknown number. It consists of seven ominous words.

“Pendragon can’t escape his destiny forever --Mordred”

Their eyes meet; Arthur’s are startled and dark, with a rim of clouded blue, and the hitch of Arthur’s breath mirrors his own.

“He’s coming for me,” Arthur whispers.

“Well, when he does, he’d better come for us both,” says Merlin, firmly. “Because I’ll be right by your side. Protecting you. It feels like that’s where I belong, somehow.” And when he says that, something clicks into place in Merlin’s head, like a final jigsaw piece slotting into place.

Or like destiny.

~The End~

 


End file.
